Category: Bottle caps (HDPE)

Are all caps made of HDPE?

Not necessarily, but the vast majority of them are. Unfortunately, current European legislation doesn’t make it mandatory to print resin codes on caps (resin codes are the small numbers from 1 to 7 that specify the type of plastic a product is made of). According to a Dutch study looking at 1000 caps collected at beach clean-ups, 71% had no resin code and 23% had code 2 (HDPE). Of the remaining caps with legible recycle codes, fewer than 1% had code 3, 1% had code 4 and 1% had code 5, which are all different types of plastic polymers (or resins).

Sources

Precious Plastic Dublin – Donate your HDPE bottle caps to us!

The plastic bottle cap report – Findings of the first survey into plastic bottle cap pollution on beaches in the Netherlands 08/06/2017